58-60 East 14th Street

Located on the south end of Union Square, this humongous art installation is definitely attention grabbing. Known as one of the world’s most unusual public clocks, it features 15 numbers, the 7 numbers on the left display a conventional 24-hour clock as hours, minutes, seconds, and tenths of a second, while the 7 numbers on the right display the time remaining in the 24-hour day as tenths of a second, seconds, minutes, and hours. The single digit in the middle represents a hundredth of a second. 

Designed by Kristen Jones and Andrew Ginzel, this artwork was constructed in 1999, and cost almost $3 million. This art wall aims to explore the relationship between the city and time, calling viewers to ponder how the city is in a constant state of change, just as how the clock is.

In September 2020, a new digital clock was unveiled by artists Gan Golan and Andrew Boyd. Known as the Climate Clock, it warns humans that if we do not take action fast enough, this is the amount of time we have left before an irreversible climate crisis takes place. The digits on the clock counts down to the number of years (1 digit), days (3 digits), hours (2 digits), minutes (2 digits), and seconds (2 digits) remaining.

Head over to the metronome to see for yourself how much time we have left to save the world!